Jeong Mongju 鄭夢周
scholar · diplomat · Goryeo Korea · 1337–1392
A scholar and diplomat of the last years of Goryeo. He went as envoy to Ming China and Japan, tried to the end to save the failing dynasty, and was killed on Seonjuk Bridge in Gaeseong.
Posts
later 14th century
The spring rain is too fine to form drops, but in the night there is the faintest sound. The snow is gone and the south stream will be swelling. How many shoots of grass have come up, I wonder?
春雨細不滴 夜中微有聲
雪盡南溪漲 多少草芽生Poeun jip, book 2, "Spring"
later 14th century · Written in the voice of a wife whose husband is away at war
Years since we parted, and word comes seldom; who knows if he lives or has died on the frontier? This morning at last I send off his winter clothes, carried by the child who was in my womb when I wept and saw him go.
一別年多消息稀 塞垣存歿有誰知
今朝始寄寒衣去 泣送歸時在腹兒Poeun jip, "A Soldier's Wife's Lament," first poem
1392 (recorded in a songbook of 1728) · Said to be his answer to Yi Bangwon's song. Soon afterwards he was killed on Seonjuk Bridge
Though this body die and die, die a hundred times over, though my white bones turn to dust and my soul be or not be, could my single red heart, turned towards my lord, ever change?
이 몸이 주거주거 一百番 고쳐 주거
白骨이 塵土ㅣ 되여 넉시라도 잇고 업고
님 向ᄒᆞᆫ 一片丹心이야 가싈 줄이 이시랴"Dansimga," in Cheonggu yeongeon (1728)
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